Congratulations to John Richards and Adam Richard. Their TV series, Outland, which is still waiting to air in Australia, just won an award at the 16th Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, where it had its international premier.

For a group of people who don’t really follow sport all that much, we really do talk about its coverage a lot on Boxcutters. One of the reasons we do this is because sport, traditionally, leads the way in terms of pushing the technology of television.

The Federal Court will tomorrow hold a hearing on a request by Optus to restrain the AFL and NRL from suing it for breach of copyright for its TV Now service, which was launched on July 19. The service allows Optus phone and internet customers to watch AFL games on an effective delay of as little as two minutes.
It could prove to be an important test case for content rights in the era of internet television and multimedia devices.

This is a tough one for TV fans. The Telstra deal was vital for the promotion of portable TV viewing. That is, it was vital until TV Now came out.

The concept of TV Now is nothing short of brilliant and hindsight tells us it was bound to happen. Telstra may have used bad judgement but, more realistically, may have just been unlucky: Bad judgement because it did not do due diligence in researching technologies that would undermine its deal and unlucky because Optus chose this moment to remember that telecommunications is a competitive industry.

What is most confusing here is that the AFL and NRL are defending Telstra in a copyright claim rather than supporting the idea that their games will become available to an even wider audience.

If TV Now is stopped in its tracks, it will not be because Telstra made a bad deal and failed to remember caveat emptor. It will be because AFL and NRL are monsters of greed that don’t care about their fans or the games they represent. As such, it will be a loss to sport and television.

(Yes, we are aware that the title of this post might be a little too dramatic. -Ed.)

We wish James the best of luck with whatever his future has in store for him.

Aside: Punctuation pedants will enjoy the line in the Jacqueline Freegard bio page that lists her outside interests as spending time with “Jack Russell Hugo”. Is that three people, one person or a dog? (Yes, I had a lot of fun looking at the Channel Nine News website.)

Federal Senator, Nick Xenephon, wants the Environment and Communications References Committee to investigate the recent cuts to production announced by the ABC.

According to the Australian, the Committee is to report back by 12 October 2012.

Meanwhile, the ABC itself reports on the situation with the following par:

Earlier this month Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said he wanted answers from the national broadcaster’s managing director, Mark Scott, over the decision to axe the The New Inventors [sic]and Art Nation.

There is an issue here about how much influence any government can have over the ABC and where the line of that influence is drawn. Are specific matters of programming and the axing of shows smaller issues than a government should concern itself with? What about when it comes to regional jobs?

We’ve covered this concept a lot in the past on Boxcutters and the trend to euphemise suicide has definitely waned in TV journalism.

We wonder if there will be an official statement instructing TV and radio journalists to be more explicit about suicide.

Considering that the statistics show increased suicides after a suicide report, will we see a spike in the number of suicides? Has the euphemism of “no suspicious circumstances” become so well-known now that it’s a bit ridiculous to continue with the ruse?

At a time when soap operas are falling off free to air television in the developed world, its lack of subtext helps developing nations overcome disturbing social issues.

In a great episode of Radio National’s Future Tense we get to hear about the after-life of the soap opera.

It kind of gives more credence to this idea that the soap opera is an important part of television’s childhood and that in a lot of countries that’s exactly where television still exists.

In Australia, Neighbours has be moved to a “non-core” channel and in the US shows including All My Children and One Life to Live have been cancelled.

The question remains, though, if this is the end of our childhood then what sort of adolescence are we expecting for television? Is it going to be another 50 years? What is that 50 years going to look like?

Have a listen to the episode and then please leave your thoughts in the comments.

This week’s episode of Radio National’s Background Briefing programme is all about the battle for the lounge room and speaks to our question of how to define television.

They do a great job (much better than we’ve done) of explaining how simultaneously simple and complex the concepts are. People really have no idea what is going on around them and yet technology companies keep pushing out new products.

It’s interesting to hear people say things like: “ Perhaps you’ll just do [internet banking] while you’re sitting around in the lounge room. And you won’t get up and go and get your laptop out and connect to the internet.” It’s a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.

The attempts by the companies that make television sets to stay relevant in a culture that is moving towards constant and portable access to everything seems so transparent and shallow. There’s the stench of desperation around it. They’re trying to make it sound like convenience but it really just comes across as being ill-conceived and reactionary.